


Folly

by UnromanticPoetess



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Caning, Canon Compliant, Completely Consensual, Did I mention caning, Future Fic, Light BDSM, Like they keep asking for consent every few minutes, M/M, Mild spoilers for Broken Homes, Nightingale is quite literally closeted, grammatically tortured love confessions, mentions of period-typical homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:05:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7470138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnromanticPoetess/pseuds/UnromanticPoetess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was long and thin and clattered against the floor. It was made from pale wood and lacquered darker at the top, forming a handle. I picked it up and twirled it in my hands as the reality of it slowly dawned on me. A cane. An honest to God, “thank you sir may I please have another” rattan cane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folly

**Author's Note:**

> So... this. I started rereading (or re-listening to... damn you, Kobna) the Rivers of London series, this time with slash goggles firmly attached and with a particular love of Thomas Nightingale. And this little fic bunny lodged itself firmly in my head, so I had to write it. In essence, it began with "Nightingale has a secret caning kink." That morphed into me thinking about how Nightingale, a gay man with a caning fetish, would have gotten out of the first half of the twentieth century with no one the wiser. Basically, I have a thing for people who feel so many feelings and have no idea what to do with them. And, yes, there's caning, but there's also sappy and corny love, because that's apparently how I roll.
> 
> This can stand on its own. I might add more chapters later, but that will depend on ideas. Enjoy!

The Folly was old.

It was, of course, old in that respectable Georgian terrace kind of way, with its separate rooms for eating separate meals and atmosphere that literally defies modern technology, but it was also old in that “blokes have been living here for centuries and no one seemed to know how to throw anything out” kind of way.

It was why some of the labs and reading rooms were still equipped with astrolabes. It was why the mundane library was filled with dusty files from wizards reporting on weather patterns in Heretfordshire (which I actually gave a read, given some of my experiences, but it wasn’t even what Postmartin would be interested in). And it was why I was spending a perfectly good Saturday slogging through a closet in the firing range in search of paper targets that didn’t include racial stereotypes. In my eight years of apprenticeship, I’d gone through the more generic ones and was left with the ones that had suffered from 1940s war propaganda caricatures and what I assumed counted as humor at the time. I’d burned those,  and not with fireballs.

I was just coming to the conclusion that I would have to either request more targets or create my own when my hands closed around a stack of paper buried deep in the closet under a pile of coveralls. I pulled and there was a sound of brittle paper tearing, so I carefully let go and actually crawled into the closet, casting a werelight for good measure. They weren’t paper targets, and I was about to grab them up to go through later when I noticed an old, yellowed notebook marked by Nightingale’s scrawl, labeled “Latin notes.”

Well, that was interesting. I’d had had to suffer through enough of Nightingale’s snide remarks about my own progress in a certain “dead to all but certain British wizards” language, and I figured it would be heartening to read of a certain British wizard’s early struggles. A tiny voice in my head told me that something about this was a bit wrong. Nightingale’s Latin instruction would have ended at Casterbrook; he’d told me often enough. Maybe he kept it for reference, or for nostalgia, but then why was it buried in a closet in the firing range and not in his own room? I didn’t listen hard enough to that tiny voice, as usual, and curiosity got the better of me.

As I opened the notebook, an equally yellowing magazine fell out of the notebook. The werelight cast enough of a glow to reveal, on the magazine’s cover, a buff white boxer with a pencil-thin mustache posed with his ineffectual-looking boxing gloves under the title _A Male Figure_.

And that was how I discovered the youthful porn stash of Thomas Nightingale.

* * *

Now, technically, pornography for men who preferred the company of each other had been illegal up until the 1970s. Censorship, however, could not entirely deter people’s desire to wank and other people’s desire to profit from said desire to wank. Hence the proliferation of fitness magazines for men, which featured the prime specimens of the time flexing their muscles and wearing practically nothing. They were also known as “beefcake magazines,” and they were the dirtiest smut a well-brought-up horny young man could acquire in the 1920s. I knew all this because of a very difficult Google search, made difficult by an apparent continuing interest in vintage porn and people’s continuing interest in profiting from it.

Not that I’d gone searching much past Wikipedia and a few blogs from graduate students. I was pretty sure Nightingale didn’t know how to check search histories, but Molly was becoming increasingly tech-savvy, and Abigail liked to use the computer when she came over to bitch about her probationary duties. Neither of them would say much—Molly wouldn’t say anything—but I just didn’t know how I would deal with the _looks_ if they found out.

The first time I’d seen Thomas Nightingale, I’d taken him for an older gay man out looking for a slightly ethnic younger boyfriend. The cliché, you know. That thought had quickly been disabused by his warrant card, and after that I’d been too busy being sworn in as an apprentice wizard and chasing the revenant spirit of riot and rebellion around London to do much follow up on Nightingale’s sexual identity. For all I knew, the most action he got was out of a good crossword puzzle and a cup of tea. Somehow the image of a young man hiding in a closet with a few beefcake magazines covered by his Latin notebook (calling the cliché police) did not match with the immaculate Master of the Folly I’d known for eight years.

It was strange, now that I thought about it, that his love life had never come up. Mine had, far too often, what with my propensity for getting into relationships with various practitioners and supernatural beings. First there was my hopeless pining for Lesley May, cut short by her tasing me in the back. Then there was my storied past with Beverly Brook. Then Simone, unwitting jazz vampire and still the cause of some of my nightmares. And then, because I was at once bisexual, stupid, and apparently obsessed with minor river deities, there was the whole thing with Ash, whose love of the city, drinking, and sex had not been permanently deterred by his unfortunate incident with the Pale Lady. My love life had nearly caused another war between the Thames families before me and Ash decided to call it quits.

And in all that time, Thomas Nightingale hadn’t once gone on a date, or looked at another man or woman with anything but cool detachment or, in the case of me, a mix of friendliness and exasperation. I’d sort of assumed that he wasn’t interested either way. If it weren’t for the stack of beefcake magazines in the closet, I could still believe that. I mean, he’d lived through the 60s and 70s. Had he been so removed that he’d missed out on the entire sexual revolution? Or had trauma removed any desire? He’d carved the name of every wizard who had died because of Ettersberg into the walls of Ambrose House. Had one of those names been a boyfriend?

I have to admit, I started to find it difficult to concentrate on any task at hand when I was with him. For the next week I muddled my way through lessons, too busy watching him closely and contemplating his inner life to focus properly on the forma. Unfortunately, I was working on a tricky fifth order spell—a way to create time-delayed, directed fireballs—so it was not exactly the best time to be daydreaming. In fact, all I could see from my careful contemplation of his face was a slow building of exasperation, more than he’d shown in a while.

“I realize that you’re at the stage where you believe that building formae is second nature,” Nightingale said in the crisp, posh tones that seemed practically made for conveying disapproval, “but I can assure you that the basics are still important. Should I set you to practicing the basic formae for the next week?”

I forced myself to concentrate on the forma. We were in the firing range, buckets of water at the ready just in case I succeeded in setting myself on fire finally, so my mind also kept drifting to the stash hidden in the closet. As such, my time-delayed directed fireball weakly fizzled to the floor… right onto Nightingale’s shoes.

Nightingale gave a shout of surprise and fell to the ground, trying to kick the shoes off, while I ran for a bucket of water. The water put the flames out immediately, and thankfully the fire hadn’t seemed to have done more than scorch the leather of the shoes.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Now that the immediate danger had passed, I was starting to feel sick. I could have seriously hurt him. I gingerly pulled off the shoes and socks to see feet that were far pinker than they should have been.

Nightingale was breathing a bit heavily, recovering from the shock and pain. “It was a mistake, Peter, both yours and mine. I should not have pushed you like that.” He winced as I examined his feet. A bit of aloe would help them, but it looked nothing more than if he’d sunburned the tops of his feet. “I do wonder what’s been distracting you like this.”

I suddenly realized I was practically fondling his feet as he half-laid on the floor. I also realized that I’d been contemplating carrying him the three flights up the stairs to his bedroom.

Okay, full disclosure. I’d had a crush on him ever since my third year of apprenticeship. For that matter, it had really been ever since he first performed lux for me, but I’ve never been all that swift on the uptake. It had taken a while to realize that my feelings for him weren’t just hero worship and adoration, but full on “I wonder what his hair would look like all mussed up from sex” lusty feelings. Over the years, all of that had coalesced with actual friendship and genuine regard to the point where I might actually love him.

What kept me from saying all this? Let’s go down the list. Senior officer. My master (though right from the beginning I’d made it clear he was my governor, not master). Possibly not interested in men, or in anyone, or in specifically me. I’m not good with admitting my feelings, okay? Things usually just happen with people I like, or they didn’t. And in Nightingale’s case, they weren’t.

He got a strange look on his face, and I realized I’d been staring at him, not answering his question. And I also realized that my distraction was all wrapped up in Thomas Nightingale, and that wasn’t going to go away. It was time to have a conversation, just so I could get my brain back on track. I decided I was emotionally mature enough to take a clear rejection better than I could take a big question mark hovering between us. I was growing up. Who knew?

But, preferably not on the floor of the firing range.

“Sorry, sir,” I mumbled, my tongue feeling thick. “There is something that’s… ah… been distracting me, and I think we may need to talk about it. But not here.”

Nightingale’s eyebrows drew up in confusion. “I see. In that case, perhaps we should call it a day for now.” He frowned at his shoes, obviously not looking forward to the long walk on bare sore feet up to his bedroom.

“I’ll get your slippers and some medicine, you just wait here.” I got up and started walking quickly out, wanting to put some distance between us so I could figure out what the hell I was going to say. “Where are your slippers, anyway?” I asked.

“In the wardrobe,” Nightingale said, obviously consigned to sitting on the floor of the firing range until I got back.

I bounded up the stairs to Nightingale’s bedroom. I’d been in it a few times, mostly to help Nightingale in the few times he’d been wounded. And I’d mostly been in the way, as Molly had taken care of everything each time. I’d never been in the room alone, but it wasn’t hard to find the aloe in his bathroom (try not to think too hard about rubbing it on his skin). I then faced the wardrobe, a perfect Narnia wardrobe bigger and older than mine, where of course the meticulous Nightingale would have put his slippers every day. No leaving slippers by the bed to trip over for him.

The wardrobe was orderly, as expected. Beautiful tailored suits and a row of hand-stitched shoes across the bottom. I stopped to admire it all—I never tire of Nightingale’s clothing, though I preferred to have him filling them out—before I pulled out a soft-looking pair of slippers. I was clumsy, understandable given the conversation I was preparing to have with my governor, because a few things propped up against the side of the wardrobe fell out. An old fedora, I supposed from when men actually wore hats, a couple of old staves (not the silver-topped staff he usually carried), and…

It was long and thin and clattered against the floor. It was made from pale wood and lacquered darker at the top, forming a handle. I picked it up and twirled it in my hands as the reality of it slowly dawned on me. A cane. An honest to God, “thank you sir may I please have another” rattan cane.

I dropped it in shock, and then picked it up again. It was infinitely more shocking than a stack of dirty magazines in a closet, and it made the whole Nightingale puzzle far more difficult to discern.

There was a sound of feet thumping down the hallway, then the clatter of an overturned end table along with a muffled curse. I stood frozen, unable to hide the cane before Nightingale stumbled into the room, looking decidedly frazzled and panicked. His eyes widened even more when he saw me holding the cane. His mouth opened, but words seemed to fail him, for probably the first time since I’d known him.

I felt remarkably calm. Especially given the fact that my senior officer had just run full-tilt up three flights of stairs on bare injured feet to prevent me from finding his dirty little secret in the wardrobe. He must have panicked when he realized where he’d sent me. I mean, he could have probably passed off the cane as something innocuous if he’d just sat still. Instead…

Before I could stop myself, I whipped the cane against my palm, hard enough to make a swish and crack sound, but not hard enough to actually hurt. And, fuck me, but he actually _flinched_. Like he’d experienced it against his own flesh. There was fear in his eyes, but also… let’s just say he’d left detachment and professional friendliness far behind.

I sighed. First thing’s first. “Sit on the bed. Let’s take care of those feet,” I added, just so my intentions were completely clear. I’d left the usual “sir” off, and we both noticed.

He hobbled over to the bed and sat; he’d obviously not done his feet any favors by his sprint upstairs. I picked up the aloe and set the cane on the trunk at the end of his bed. He put his feet up on the bed to give me easy access. He did not insist on doing this himself, and he kept giving nervous glances at the cane. He was tensely quiet, and I knew that it was going to be up to me to direct the conversation.

Nightingale hissed as I put the cold gel on his feet. “It doesn’t look too bad,” I said. I gave him a reassuring smile. “Just don’t go running any marathons. I’m sorry again. Your shoes are probably completely ruined, aren’t they?”

His shoulders seemed to relax slightly when I didn’t refer to my discovery immediately. “They weren’t my favorite pair,” he said. “Peter…”

I held up my hand, and he went silent. It was that same feeling when he flinched at the sound of the cane, and when I hadn’t referred to him as “sir.” There was a shift in power, and it had everything to do with the look in Nightingale’s eyes. Not only when he looked at the cane, but when he now looked at me. I just couldn’t believe that I had ever thought of him as passionless. The look in his eyes now was pure passion and lust. It took every tiny bit of self-control I possessed to not tackle him and kiss him soundly on his own bed.

But, no. There had to be a conversation first. If this was going to happen, I needed to know what it meant to him, and he needed to know what it meant to me. I’d fucked up so many relationships in my life, I wasn’t going to fuck this one up, not when it was all I’d wanted for five fucking years.

And somehow I knew it didn’t matter he was my master and my senior officer, or that he was several decades older than I was. Not right then. Right then, I had to be the one in charge.

“Right,” I said, putting a little snap to my voice and making sure to hold eye contact with him. “We need to talk. I’m taking this with me,” I picked up the cane, “and going to my room. Stay here for fifteen minutes, and then meet me there. Then we’ll talk.”

“Yes,” Nightingale said in a tense voice, “I think we need to.”

I gave him a smile. “Fifteen minutes. Don’t forget to wear your slippers,” I reminded him, and then turned to leave.

I bounded down the stairs for the firing range and, ignoring the ruined shoes, I pulled the magazines from the closet. In for a penny, in for the whole fucking pound, I thought. I thankfully didn’t meet Molly on the way there or back. I returned to my room in plenty of time and was suddenly overcome with a wave of nerves. What the fuck was I doing? I was ordering around Thomas fucking Nightingale like he was… like I was… I didn’t even know what words to use. Suddenly, the power dynamics in our relationship made no sense, and I wasn’t even sure if any of that mattered. I knew that I cared about him deeply, and I didn’t want him to be someone with a stack of antique magazines in the closet and a cane in his wardrobe but without anyone to love.

* * *

All too soon, Nightingale stood in the doorway, looking like he’d lived entire lifetimes of emotions before getting there. I glanced at the clock next to my bed. Sure enough, fifteen minutes on the dot. He blushed at the sight of the magazines, now freed from their Latin confines.

“I knew the Folly was full of secrets, but I really had no idea,” I said. Somehow his rise in color at the sight of those magazines gave me confidence. I gestured with the cane to an armchair. There were two in the corner of my room. I never used them except to put my shoes on, but I didn’t want us sitting on the bed. I sensed a little distance would help Nightingale open up… or that going straight to the bed might escalate things to where we didn’t actually get around to the difficult conversation parts. I sat in the other one after he sat down.

“Okay…” I said slowly, “I’m going to say my piece, just like I promised. You can say yours after this, and if that piece is the word “no,” you can take your things and put them wherever you want and I won’t pry or go poking in any more closets. Is that… good?”

I was still holding the cane, and maybe that wasn’t exactly fair, but for some reason I didn’t want to put it down. I held it out to him, handle first, wordlessly offering him the option to leave and forget about the whole thing, but he merely looked at it. His eyes slowly swept back up to me. “Understood.” His voice was dry and hoarse, and somehow it gave me hope.

Suddenly the words came to me very easily. Whatever repercussions they may have, I wasn’t overly worried about them. Even if it all ended up in a rejection, we would go on, I could tell that much. “For the past five years… maybe longer… I’ve been attracted to you. I already feel closer to you than I’ve ever felt to anyone else in my entire life. I think I’m in love with you. I’ve just never said anything because I know all the difficulties, and I wasn’t even sure if you were interested in sex.” I glanced at the stack of magazines. “At least, I wasn’t until now.”

He looked at the stack, and his eyes crinkled with humor and nostalgia. That was good. I was afraid he was going to go after me for violating his privacy, or even try to deny it was his. Sorry, I was holding these for another boy who died in the war and totally forgot they were there. The thought made me smile, what I’d try to say if Nightingale or anyone else found my secret folder on the computer.

“I know it’s still difficult,” I continued, “what with you being my senior officer and me being your apprentice, but… I want to be with you, with all the soppy romantic and lovely physical things that go along with it. And I want to do it right. What… what do you think?”

I realized my hand was shaking, and I was clutching the cane so hard my knuckles were turning white. It was out there, finally. Now that I’d said the words, I wasn’t sure if they were the right ones to use, if I’d come on too strong or made it too much about me. I waited for him to get up, to take the cane and magazines and leave.

Instead, he gave a shuddering breath and looked down, obviously trying to gather his words.

“You don’t look surprised,” I said, cutting myself off before adding the “sir” at the end.

“Of course I’m not bloody surprised,” Nightingale said uncharacteristically. His voice held no venom, however. He took another breath. “I have been aware of your feelings for me for a long time, Peter. You wear every emotion so plainly on your face that it has impossible to ignore. And…” He took one more deep breath, “They have not been unreciprocated.”

Wait, what?

Did he just…

Did Thomas Nightingale just declare his love for me in the most grammatically tortured way possible?

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” I blurted out. “Or at least given me some kind of clue? Because I watch you pretty closely, and the first indication I’ve had that you’re slightly interested in anyone, let alone me, is when I was holding this fucking cane.”

He winced when I indicated the cane. “Peter… you must understand. I’ve had decades of practice at hiding my feelings. And I had reason, as well. My… what I am…” He glanced at the magazines, “it was illegal until the late 60s. I knew men who lost everything: career, reputation, freedom… I had an uncle who ran off to Brazil with his valet when I was young… not the uncle who became a wizard, but another one. They’d been found out, you see. I remember my parents talking about him, that he was a dark blot on the family name. They worried he’d corrupted the children, as he was so fond of us. I’d been a favorite of his, so they watched me in particular.”

Nightingale’s eyes had taken on a faraway quality, different from the look he got whenever he remembered the war. These memories were older and more a part of himself. Like, he considered Ettersberg a terrible aberration, but the actions of his parents as completely natural. I wasn’t sure which reaction disturbed me more.

“I knew early on I couldn’t be exactly what they wanted,” he continued. “Thankfully, as I was one of the youngest sons, there wasn’t much pressure on me to marry. I knew I could never reveal what I was, but neither could I betray myself or any kind lady who would agree to marry me. I also knew early on that I was going to Casterbrook, so I put all my efforts in becoming the perfect student and the perfect wizard. I would not allow any distraction to keep me from my studies. If I couldn’t be normal, at least I could be extraordinary.” He gave a dry, bitter chuckle. “At least, that was my reasoning in my youth. I can’t say I made a great many friends in Casterbrook early on.”

“But…” This didn’t quite ring with the stories he’d told me of his time in sixth form at Casterbrook, though it did shed light on his insistence that I focus and not mess about with experiments. He apparently wouldn’t have dared when he was young. “You went out drinking. You were one of the horrid young men using the Night Gate.”

Nightingale nodded. “The thing about being really good at magic in a school for magic, you start to make friends again after the other lads look past how much of a swot you are. Besides… that was the kind of trouble that was expected.”

Keeping up appearances. The one true standard of the British Isles. “And the magazines?”

His eye twitched. “Moments of weakness. I suppose no one can keep up that level of tension.”

It was then I realized something that made me nearly drop the cane. Nightingale watched me grimly as I put it all together, much like he’d done so often while we were working on a case. “The cane. It’s from Ambrose House, isn’t it? You took it with you after the school was abandoned. Because… because… this cane was what you always avoided, right?”

Nightingale looked at the cane with a sad kind of humor. “Not entirely. This was a boy’s public school, Peter, and the prevailing thought at the time was that children weren’t learning if they weren’t beaten regularly. The masters may have claimed they’d command the elements against us, but their usual methods were far more mundane. I was not immune to the cane, for all my efforts… though I did manage to avoid it most of the time.”

I frowned at the cane. School hadn’t exactly been the greatest time of my life, but corporal punishment was rare, practically unheard of. My teachers and my mum threatened to beat me, but they were never truly serious. I couldn’t imagine a childhood where that was not only a possibility, but an inevitability. “I can see why. If I’d had this hanging over me, I’d…” I grinned, “well, I’d probably have done everything the same, but I’d have been much sneakier about it.”

Nightingale looked like he was chewing over something unpleasant. I waited, and then my brain caught up to my stupid mouth yet again. The look in his eyes when he’d seen me holding the cane for the first time…

“You liked it,” I said softly. “That’s why you tried to avoid the cane… you didn’t want anyone to find out that you liked it.”

Nightingale buried his face in his hands, and then looked straight forward. It didn’t seem as if he could look at me or the cane. “Yes,” he said softly.

We sat in silence at his admission. No wonder he was so in control all the time. No wonder he’d adopted detachment as a default. It must have seemed like his mind and body were ready to betray him at any moment. I mean, that’s normal puberty, but add to that a ridiculous amount of homophobia and a caning kink on top of that…

“I thought things would be better at the Folly,” Nightingale broke the silence. Now that he was admitting all this, he didn’t seem able to stop. “I wouldn’t have the cane to worry about, at least. However, I was now faced with living with and near the cleverest and most attractive wizards of my time. There were some who shared my inclination, and I did allow myself a few… liaisons… it was always hurried and fraught with fear. You see, we could not truly trust one another or anyone else. Not when the consequences of getting caught were so high. Even a hint of anything untoward might lead to recriminations and betrayal.” He took a breath. “There were also those who were experimenting with magic as a way to reform degenerates like me, much like doctors at the time were experimenting with things like shock therapy…”

“You’re not a degenerate,” I interrupted, partially because I just couldn’t stand to hear whatever horrors he was going to say next. I’m not exactly proud of that, okay, but I had sort of reached my limits on vintage horrors.

He paused. He still wouldn’t look at me. “I know that,” he said.

“Not incredibly convincing.”

He finally looked at me, and I was actually glad to see anger on his face. Much better than the dull acceptance he’d worn through most of the narrative. “It was a different time, Peter. A time that is still very much a part of me. It’s not something I can leave behind so easily. You grew up being able to love whomever you want, and you do so with remarkable voracity.”

I gripped the cane harder, felt myself getting angry, but I forced myself not to rise to his bait. I let him rethink his words. I’d pushed him, so it wasn’t fair to snap back at him when he lashed out.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “I didn’t mean what I said. I know you face… prejudice as well.”

I’d been preparing a lecture about how legality did not necessarily mean universal acceptance, and how bisexual people were considered both confused and more promiscuous, and how being both bisexual and biracial mixed together to form a whole new set of problems, but I let it go. As I said, he’d lashed out. Instead, I focused on what he first said.

“It’s okay,” I said breezily, “but that whole thing about that ‘other time’ being a part of you? That’s bollocks. Because you’ve changed plenty in the decades since then, even though you like to act like you’re a relic from the past. You’re just holding on to your shell because it feels safe, and you’re afraid what will happen if you relax for even a minute. You’re afraid of getting close to anyone…”

I’m not sure quite what I said to push him over the edge. In an instant, he was on his feet. He took the cane I’d been holding loosely in front of me, took the stack of magazines, and wordlessly left the room.

I stared at the open door. Molly peeked in, silently glaring at me, angry that I’d done something to upset Nightingale. Or maybe she’d found the burned shoes and put two and two together. She swept past my room, probably planning retribution in the form of cold tea and indigestible sandwiches.

“Fuck…” I said to the empty room. Yet another tick in my long list of relationship disasters. But, somehow, this seemed the worst.

* * *

A week passed. A whole bloody week of forced politeness and meals spent apart. It was like a wall of ice had settled between us, and I had absolutely no power to get rid of it.

True to my word, I didn’t mention our discussion once. Nothing about the cane or the magazines. I had promised, after all. I kept remembering his grammatically tortured confession of love, but it was lost amidst layers of repression and probably hurt feelings. I’d been subject to the silent treatment before, but no one does the silent treatment quite like Thomas Nightingale. Beverly, for instance, would keep looking or prodding to make sure you were properly punished by the silence, until she just gave it up altogether. Ash would just eventually forget about the argument entirely. Lesley… well… that was another story entirely. Nightingale, however, could make you feel like everything was perfectly normal, just with an extra layer of ice.

Oddly, I got far better at the forma we’d been working on, and fairly soon I was making fireballs whiz around the firing range. I threw myself into work, both apprentice work and police work. I supposed this was exactly what he’d done most of his life, and I was a little resentful that he’d pulled me into his game.

When not working, I holed myself up in the tech cave, sometimes even sleeping there. I knew I was depressed, but that’s what comes of propositioning your boss and being rejected. It was driving me mad, but there was nothing I could do about it.

After a long night watching a _Doctor Who_ marathon until my eyes itched with exhaustion, I felt cheered enough that I could go back to my room in the Folly without feeling the abruptly-ended conversation too intensely. Besides, my back couldn’t take another night on the chaise lounge. I trudged up the stairs and prepared for another restless night of sleep, when I paused at my door. It was ajar, when I knew I’d closed it, and there was a light on inside. I peeked in, an impello at the ready…

There was Nightingale, sitting in the same chair he’d been a week before. The stack of magazines were on the table next to it, and the cane was propped up in the seat of the opposite armchair.

I blinked rapidly, hoping against all hope this wasn’t a product of my somewhat sadistic imagination. The image remained. Nightingale’s face was weakly illuminated by my bedside lamp, so I couldn’t see him properly. I flipped on the light, and was startled to see red eyes and a blotchy face. I’d never actually seen the man cry—he’d come close, particularly when talking about the war—and seeing the aftermath of what looked like a long crying jag shook me to the core.

“I… I am ready to continue our conversation,” he said in a hoarse voice.

I turned the light out, mostly in answer to his eyes suddenly squinting at the glare. The image of his tear-streaked face didn’t go away, and I knew as much as I’d been suffering the past week, he’d been suffering just as much. He was just, as usual, much better at hiding it, and that was part of the problem.

“You’re right,” he said when I didn’t speak. “I’ve been using my upbringing as an excuse to avoid getting close to people. It’s easier, not getting close to people.” He gave a cough that bore a possible resemblance to a chuckle. “At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.”

I nodded. I moved closer, approaching him as I would a particularly skittish animal. “Can we go back to your grammatically tortured love confession?” I said. “Because that was my favorite bit from last time.”

He smiled, and lord it had been so long since I’d seen his smile. “I… I’m in love with you, Peter.”

A simple statement, stripped of affectation and mitigation. I felt a rush of emotion that was equal parts affection and terror that I was still going to find a way to fuck this up. But looking at him, and looking at how drained and vulnerable he looked now that the words were out there, I knew how much courage it had taken for him to say that simple statement. How he’d probably been building his courage for a full bloody week, and what I’d taken for the silent treatment was simply Nightingale forcing himself to change. Just like I’d ask him to.

Suddenly, he looked far too lonely, and I knew I felt far too lonely, so I closed the distance between us in two quick strides and pulled him into a kiss. “I… god… I love you, Thomas,” I gasped out between kisses, because it had to be said again, and I had to say his first name, the name he’d asked me to call him only once early in my apprenticeship, the name I’d refused to use, but now everything was different, and I realized I was changing, too.

Tears were rolling down his cheeks again as I pulled away, and I wondered when was the last time he’d allowed himself to cry. I entwined my fingers in his hair and pulled him close into a hug. He sobbed once… twice… hard sobs deep in his chest that barely made a sound, and he clung to me like he was drowning and I was his only anchor.

We clung to each other until my legs and back started to ache—I was crouched in front of him as he sat in the armchair—so I softly pulled away and edged back to the other armchair, sitting on the edge. The cane slid down to rest against my back: I’d completely forgotten about it. “So… what do we do now?”

Nightingale… Thomas… looked a bit dazed, but he snapped back to reality. “I rather thought you would decide that.”

He was eyeing something over my shoulder, and I realized it was the cane. I realized what he wanted, how I needed to play this. And I was surprised to realize that it was what I wanted as well. I’ve never been all that dominant in my relationships, but this seemed… right.

I gave him my cockiest smirk, in part to lighten the mood a bit. “As long as we’re facing our fears, right?”

He cleared his throat a bit. “Quite.”

It took everything in me to not snog him senseless right there. We’d have time for snogging. Right now, Thomas Nightingale was asking me to cane him, and who was I to say no?

I stood up, grabbed the cane, and again whipped it against the palm of my hand, just so I could see that flinch again. I wasn’t disappointed. I was also pleased that I’d succeeded in mussing his hair up beautifully.

“Right then, Thomas.” I motioned with the cane to my bed. “I believe six of the best are in order. Strip down and assume the position.”

He gave me that was so full of lust and affection that I had to kiss him as soon as he got up. I’d planned to cooly watch him as he stripped for me, but now that what we were doing was finally a reality, I found I couldn’t keep my hands off him. He gasped, clutching at me, and I deepened the kiss as we both stumbled toward the bed. I had the presence of mind to set the cane down against the bed, and then I moved my hands over his body, pressing him into the side of the bed.

Thomas had stopped crying, and now he was flushed with delighted surprise and desire. He was apparently just as pleased at my inability to keep from touching him as I was. I used the opportunity to help him off with his coat, and then his waistcoat. He seemed prepared to let them side to the floor, but they were more expensive than anything I owned, so I carefully laid them across my desk chair. He started fumbling with the edges of my t-shirt, but I slapped his hands away. He laughed at that, and I was pleased that he wasn’t taking this too seriously. After all, we could play at me having control over him, but when it was all said and done, there was no real power play. There was just me and him, loving each other to bits.

“You have,” I grimaced at the complicated catches on his belt and trousers, “far too many layers.” I’d already taken off his shirt to see that, because he was right that parts of him were still living in the 1940s, he was wearing an undervest.

“You could rip them off me,” Thomas said.

“I wouldn’t dare.” I again carefully laid out his trousers and was pleased to see his old-fashioned taste did not extend to sock garters. I don’t think I could have kept a straight face if it had.

“I always thought your attraction to me was based mostly on my suits,” he said, the cheeky bastard. His hands had been busily roaming up and down my chest and back, and now he brushed them over the erection clearly visible in my sweats, and my knees nearly buckled. I responded by grinding against him, and he let off the loveliest moan that I couldn’t help but do it again.

By this time we were both panting and dangerously close to falling into each others arms on the bed. If Thomas had forgotten what he’d initially wanted, however, I hadn’t. I carefully stepped back, ignoring the little involuntary whine he gave as I pushed away, and picked up the cane again.

“Off with the rest,” I said, motioning with the cane to show my intentions. His face became more serious, but it didn’t lose its eagerness and passion. Instead, he practically tripped over his feet (now fully healed, thankfully) in his eagerness to divest himself of shoes, socks, pants, and undervest. I felt my face split into a grin as I was treated to the sight of Thomas Nightingale, stark bollocks naked, looking at me like I was the best thing in the world.

I paused, taking in the vision. My eyes had adjusted to the dim light, so I could see him in sharp detail. He was surprisingly muscular, and I wondered if he’d gleaned body building tips from those magazines alongside the pretty pictures. He also had multiple scars scattered across his body, including some that looked suspiciously like bullet wounds, far older than the one I knew he sported on his back. I supposed that was what happened when you lived long enough.

Now that he was no longer trying to hide behind those walls of posh Britishness, I could read every emotion darting across his face. He was more open than I’d ever seen him, and he looked exhilarated, nervous, and somehow deeply content all at once. I decided it was my mission to make him look like that from now on. Or at least when we were alone.

I motioned with the cane. “Still want this?”

He swallowed, and seemed to debate with himself. I watched the conflict and uncertainty, which finally found a resolution. “Yes, I still want it… sir.”

I nearly keeled over right then and there, and I wondered how embarrassing it would be if I passed out before getting to any of the fun bits. If anyone had told me that Thomas Nightingale would be calling me “sir” with his kit off in my bedroom even a month ago…

“Then I thought I told you to get into position, Thomas.” Now that I was using his first name, I found I couldn’t stop.

With one last cheeky “yes, sir,” he turned and bent over the side of the bed. I gave him my pillow, and he laid his head against it, twisting so he could look at me. I decided to allow it. After all, if he was going to finally act out his kink, I wanted him to have the full experience.

“Six of the best, I think I said.” I tested the swish of the cane and watched his color rise as he watched it. “You’ll let me know if it’s too much.”

Thomas huffed impatiently. “This isn’t my first time, remember?”

“Yeah, but it’s mine,” I reminded him.

And, taking my own breath, I raised the cane, aiming for high on his arse, and let it fall. The cane whistled through the air and cracked against his skin, leaving a red line across his pale flesh. He buckled, gasping and gripping at the pillow.

“Was that…” I started to ask.

“Yes, god, yes, please, sir…”

That was all the encouragement I needed, and I raised the cane again, giving him the second strike, slightly below the first. Then a third and fourth, one erratically close to his thighs.

The first two he took mostly in silence, but by the third he gave a cry, and at the fourth he had to bury his face in the pillow to keep from shouting. Even as he writhed in pain, even as his eyes shimmered in renewed tears, he was still willing, practically begging. I was careful not to cross the stripes, not wanting to give him sores, but I knew those stripes would stay for a while, and it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction to think about that. I planned on seeing him naked plenty as they faded. I ran my hand over his bum before giving him the last two. Heat radiated from the skin, and he squirmed and twisted around to look at me. “Sir… please…”

I’d never wanted to hurt anyone in my life. It was a surprise, therefore, that I was just as eager to give the last two strikes as he was to take them. I felt powerful and protective. I loved that I could take him apart like this, and I loved how I would be able to comfort him and put him back together. It was a game, but it was also about giving him permission to feel pain, to cry, to show emotion… An escape from a life that had been ruled by detachment from everything. And I was the only who could see it, who could see the real Thomas Nightingale.

So, feeling myself fall in love all over again with the man spread out underneath me, I gave him the last two right in the middle, right where I figured it would hurt the most.

Thomas screamed, his whole body clenching and twitching in pain, as he badly muffled the screams in the pillow. But I was on him in an instant, steadying him with my body. The cries stopped, he turned his head, and he kissed me, hard and rough, like he was trying to communicate all the pain to me in a single kiss. And it was the first time he’d kissed me. It felt bloody perfect.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I said as we broke the kiss. He’d turned on his side, and I was lying beside him, and he was clinging to me. I passed my hand over his arse, and he clung to me even more fiercely. “You’re okay, though. I didn’t…”

“I’m quite all right.” He shook his head and laughed hoarsely. “That’s not true… I feel bloody wonderful, and I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to do this.”

“Well, you know, as you get younger…” When I’d first met him, he looked to be in his early 40s, and now he looked more in his late 30s. We tried not to think about that too closely.

“Oh, do shut up and make love to me,” he said, the crisp posh snap coming back to his voice.

I laughed and pulled away long enough to chuck off my t-shirt. It took even less time to pull off my sweats and boxers. “See, there’s something to be said for modern convenience.”

“So you’d rather see me in t-shirt and sweats?” he teased. “Perhaps a hoodie, too?”

“Don’t you dare.” I pulled him on top of me, and we ground against each other.

Thomas smirked and pulled away, kneeling on the bed and pulling my feet up. “It seems I was right about the suit fixation. Perhaps I should leave it on sometime. Or do you like peeling them off me?”

My laugh was cut short by Thomas taking my cock into his mouth.

Whatever repression he’d been dealing with, that seemed worlds away. He took my cock like he was hungry for it, and all I could do was lay there and watch helplessly as he drove me out of my mind with his lips and tongue. I bucked into him, but he held my hips down firmly and took me to the edge slowly. I may have babbled incoherently at this point—I was always embarrassingly vocal during sex—but Thomas didn’t seem to care. I finally couldn’t stand it any longer, and I came hard, thrashing helplessly as he swallowed me down.

I was blinking black spots from my vision when Thomas crawled up to lay next to me, hard against me but willing to wait for me to recover. I showed I was still with him by kissing him, and he kissed me back enthusiastically.

I pulled him on top of me again, teasingly caressing his sore bum and smirking as he winced. I brought my leg up to put pressure against his cock, and he nearly bucked off me. I decided he’d had enough teasing.

I kissed him and spread my legs. “Condoms and lube are in the drawer,” I gestured vaguely over to my bedside table.

He blinked at me. “Are you sure?”

I was starting to experience the same frustration he probably felt when I was so hesitant about caning him. “Yes, I’m absolutely sure that I want you to fuck me. In fact, I think it’s the best idea in the world.”

He looked at me with such affection in his eyes that I practically melted, and then lunged over to the drawer. It took a minute of rustling, and I closed my eyes and let him get one with it until I felt his cold, slick fingers enter me and start to stretch. I opened my eyes to watch him, because I decided as much as I loved to see him writhing under my control, I equally loved watching him making me writhe in pleasure. Which I did. Quite a bit. He really knew what he was doing.

When he could get three fingers twisting around without me wincing, he put the condom on and hitched my legs over his shoulders—I still kept pretty limber despite my advancing age, thank you very much—and positioned himself over me. He paused, looking straight into my eyes. “You’ll let me know if it’s too much?”

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “It’s not like it’s my first time.”

He smiled a bit sadly. “Quite. But it is mine.”

I didn’t get the chance to consider those implications before he slowly pushed into me, and by then I couldn’t think of anything else.

Thomas Nightingale fucked me like he did everything else: with intense focus and total mastery. It was the same feeling I got when I watched him battle those kidnappers. He was utterly in control and overwhelming, and all I could do was hold on for dear life. It was too soon for me to get hard, but as he angled just right, it wasn’t black spots in my vision, but sparks. Like. Fucking. Magic. If there was anyone who could make sex feel like magic, it was this man.

I felt my whole body clench as wave after wave of pleasure hit me, and at the same time I felt him get slightly bigger in me, his thrusts turning erratic, and we rode out the climax together. My legs flopped down bonelessly, and we clutched at each other like we were keeping each other from falling.

Too soon, because I was getting pretty used to his weight on me, he rolled off me and pulled the condom off to toss in the bin beside the bed. He stretched out beside me again, and I wrapped my arms around him, deciding I could get used to this, too.

“Are you going to stay to sleep?” I asked, not wanting to presume too much.

“If you’ll have me,” he said tiredly.

I ran my fingers through his perfectly mussed hair—achievement unlocked—and cuddled him closer. “I guess it’s been a while since you got to sleep with anyone.”

He pulled closer to me. “Also a first time.”

Of course. The liaisons he’d talked about before… they would have had to be hurried, with both ready to bolt at any hint of discovery. No leisurely cuddling or pillow talk… and apparently none who would let him top. Perhaps that had been his choice, too, but somehow I doubted it. He’d lived his life eager to please and loathe to offend, and that probably translated into every area of his life. I didn’t ask him, though, and wasn’t sure if I could. I tried not to think about the unhappy desperation that had ruled his life for so many years, and instead focused on how I could make the rest of his life, and the rest of my life, while we’re talking about it, much happier. 


End file.
